The disclosure that one of Japan’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges lost about $400 million in NEM tokens is spooking investors in a country still wary of such venues four years after the collapse of Mt. Gox.

After hours of speculation Friday night, Coincheck Inc. said the coins were sent “illicitly” outside the venue. Co-founder Yusuke Otsuka said the company didn’t know how the 500 million tokens went missing, and the firm is working to ensure the safety of all client assets. Coincheck said earlier it had suspended all withdrawals, halted trading in all tokens except Bitcoin, and stopped deposits into NEM coins.

“We know where the funds were sent,” Otsuka said during a late-night press conference at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. “We are tracing them and if we’re able to continue tracking, it may be possible to recover them. But it is something we are investigating at the moment."

Is the Cryptocurrency Mania finally dying out? Bubble popped?
India just announced a ban on trading cryptocurrencies and even tech company like Facebook says its banning all advertising relating to things like cyptocurrencies and ICOs. China also seems to be cracking down hard on Bitcoin mining and advertising.
Looks like downward spiral has begun, as price goes lower, margin calls gonna happen and a lot of people will go bankrupt and governments will clamp down even harder to "protect" their citizen's finances....

The downward move follows a month for bitcoin when its market capitalization has tumbled from a high of $296 billion on Jan. 5 to $163 billion today – a $133 billion (44.93 percent) loss.

Having failed to hold above the $10,000 mark for the third time in last 48 hours, prices on CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) dropped to $9,480. The BPI was last seen this low on Jan. 17, when prices fell to $9,199.59.

Die Hard Fans: "A 50% correction is cake walk, I bought it at a few hundred dollars."
Recent banwagoners: "Sh**. Sell sell sell."
99% of people I know: "See I told you it is a bubble." 10 weeks ago: "What is Bitcoin ah? How to buy? Safe or not?"

It will be interesting to see from the sidelines if government crackdown can indeed destroy cryptocurrencies. Afterall, isn't the biggest draw of crypto currencies to libertarians, is that no single government can ever shut it down?

However, it would be a different story if there is a concerted effort by all the major government in the world to crack it down.

Well when people lose too much money after bubble pop, that's when the gov usually step in. We are lucky this round the crypt market only got to 1 trillion mcap, not significant enough to destabilise markets but I reckon enough to have some effect on markets.

as I mentioned before I was very surprised Americans allowed futures trading on bitcoin last year. Perhaps they will have more enforcement and regulation this year.

With this crash the trend will definitely be more gov keeping an eye on crypto.

Now the mining operation going to Canada but soon Canada will shut it down I reckon. Wait and see, exciting times.

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup said they're halting purchases of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on their credit cards. JPMorgan, enacting the ban Saturday, doesn't want the credit risk associated with the transactions, company spokeswoman Mary Jane Rogers said.

Allowing purchases of cryptocurrencies can create big headaches for lenders, which can be left on the hook if a borrower bets wrong and can't repay. There's also the risk that thieves will abuse cards that were purloined or based on stolen identities, turning them into crypto hoards. Banks also are required by regulators to monitor customer transactions for signs of money laundering – which isn't as easy once dollars are converted into digital coins.

Mastercard Inc. said this week that cross-border volumes on its network -- a measure of customer spending abroad – have risen 22 per cent this year, fueled partly by clients using their cards to buy digital currencies. The firm warned that the trend already was beginning to slow as cryptocurrency prices fell.